keynote anastasiia sydorenko

Anastasiia Sydorenko works as Ukraine research fellow in Aarhus Inst. of Advanced Studies. She was an Assistant Professor of Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv, Ukraine before the war started. Dr. Anastasiia Sydorenko received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Kharkiv Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education in Ukraine. She is a researcher and certified psychotherapist in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Her research has focused on comprehensive psychological support for patients with heart disease and their loved ones, as well as the prevention of emotional burnout in medical staff.


keynote birgit wagner

Prof. Dr. Birgit Wagner completed her psychological education at the Free University Berlin und received her PhD at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2013 she is professor of clinical psychology and behavioral therapy at the Medical School Berlin. She has an extensive expertise in implementation of new technologies in the field of traumatic stress disorder and prolonged grief disorder. Dr. Wagner has been principal investigator on a large number of controlled trials involving internet-delivered psychotherapy in Germany, Switzerland and Arab conflict regions. She was also involved as principal investigator in prevalence studies in the field of posttraumatic stress disorders and prolonged grief. She is a member of the board of the national Suicide Prevention Program Germany and scientific board member of the Bereaved parent and sibling association in Germany.


keynote alba payas

Alba Payàs is Psychotherapist with 30 years of experience working with end of life and bereaved families. Director of the Institut IPIR, Barcelona, Spain, institution devoted to support of bereaved individuals and families, and training professionals. Director of MsC Bereavement counseling and intervention, (IL3-University of Barcelona) a two-year program oriented to intervention for acute and complicated grief with a multidisciplinary approach, and a relational-integrative model of intervention that includes somatic approaches for trauma, CBT, emotional focused therapy, and constructivist narrative techniques among others.


keynote paul boelen

Prof. Dr. Paul A. Boelen is full professor of clinical psychology, at the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University. He also works as a psychotherapist at ARQ Centrum'45 and as professor at ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre. Paul is licensed supervisor and cognitive behavioural therapist with the Dutch Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy. 

His research is mainly focused on the assessment, underlying mechanisms, and treatment of emotional distress following loss and psychotrauma in adults, children, and families. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and is involved in many different projects to advance knowledge in this area.


keynote lucy selman

Dr.  Lucy Selman is Associate Professor in Palliative and End of Life Care at the University of Bristol, England, and Founding Director of Good Grief Festival, a public engagement initiative which has reached over 25,000 people since October 2020 and received global media attention. The vision for the online festival arose out of her professional interests as well as her personal experiences of grief: her second daughter was stillborn in 2018 and the festival was inspired by this loss. Good Grief provides solace and support to bereaved people as well as a platform for Dr Selman’s programme of research in bereavement and compassionate communities. She leads a research group at the University of Bristol and has published extensively on experiences of serious illness; decision-making and communication; family care-giving and bereavement; and widening access to services.


keynote debbie kerslake

Debbie Kerslake was Chief Executive of the charity Cruse Bereavement Care, the largest bereavement charity in the UK, which has over 5,000 volunteers providing bereavement support, face-to-face, via phone and online. Since retiring in 2018, Debbie has become a member of the International Workgroup on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWG); a Community Researcher with the University of Birmingham and a Board Member of Brum YODO, a Community Interest Company which encourages conversations about death, dying and bereavement. Debbie was the community engagement lead for Brum YODO's In Memoriam encouraging children, young people, and adults to get engaged in creative activity to remember those who have died during the Covid-19 pandemic. Debbie is currently part of a group working to make Birmingham, where she lives, a compassionate community, finding ways to build support around those at end of life.


keynote brady wagoner

Prof. Dr. Brady Wagoner received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and is currently Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. His research focuses on the cultural foundations of mind as a meaning-making process, with an emphasis on memory, visual culture, social change and health decision making. Over the last five years, he was involved in a Danish project on the ‘culture of grief,’ where he explored how memorial sites are designed to express collective grief. His books include The Constructive Mind (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Handbook of Culture and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Remembering as a Cultural Process (Springer, 2019). He has received a number of prestigious awards, including the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Sigmund Koch Award from the American Psychological Association and the Lucienne Domergue Award from the Casa de Velázquez, as well as held research fellowships in the France, the Netherlands and Spain.


keynote allan koster

Dr. Allan Køster is Senior Researcher at the Danish National Center for Grief and works at the intersection between philosophy, psychology and the medical humanities. His research focusses on the existential-phenomenological dimensions of human suffering in both psychological states and somatic illness. Over the past years he has been a central contributor to the emerging field of developing a “phenomenology of grief”. Between 2016-2020 he was part of the Danish research project the ‘culture of grief’ where he investigated issues of identity, embodiment and affect in early parental bereavement. More recently, he has researched the experiences of being subjected to extra-ordinary isolation protocols in Intensive Care Units during early stages of COVID-19 in collaboration with anesthesiologists. A central focus across all research topics is the ambition of articulating the tacit and embodied dimensions of lived experience. He has published widely on topics such as the phenomenology of grief, phenomenological psychopathology, the medical humanities, embodiment and narrative and has held research fellowships in Germany and the USA. Most recently he is editor of the volume The Cultural, Existential and Phenomenological Dimensions of Grief Experience (Routledge 2021).


keynote amber jeffrey

Amber Jeffrey is a celebrated podcast host and online community facilitator. Her work & podcast, The Grief Gang,specialises in breaking down the stigma around the topic that is grief one conversation at a time. By sharing her own experiences of loss as well as the stories of others on both her show and online platforms.

Through Amber's dedicated and passionate voice she has gone on to deliver talks & panel discussions at the university of Cambridge and Westminster for the UK commission on bereavement.

The podcast has gained traction in its life span of 3 years and has been recognised and amplified by many news & media outlets such as The BBC, Vogue, Women's health, The Guardian and many more. With interviews on Woman's hour, Channel 5 & BBC 1Xtra, Amber is no stranger to being behind the mic and delivering compelling, insightful and humorous interviews.

Amber is on a mission to get the country and further afield comfortable with talking about death, dying and grief. Her slogan to her podcast reads: "Welcome to the gang...the one you never asked to be part of". For something that is so concrete in life, why are we so bad at it? Amber thrives off these conversations and enjoys peeling back the layers and the nuances of grief.

Photo: Helena Dolby